Tsagaan Sar Revisited

Сар шиниин мэнд хүргье!
Sar shiniin mend hurgeye!
Have a healthy new moon! 

Today is the start of the new year in Mongolia. Apparently I was off a bit on some details  about Tsagaan Sar (White Moon), Mongolia's National Lunar New Year celebration. It is not kosher to get drunk on the holiday. However, I do know they give you many shots of vodka to drink as I visited one family tonight and the other Westerners had to drink at least six shots of vodka. I feigned an allergy to alcohol and said I'd die if I drank it which is pretty much true. See other DON'Ts During Tsagaan Sar below.

There was a boov, a pile of ceremonial bread in an odd number of layers tooped with aruul and other "white foods", and a huge grilled side of mutton, the massive fatty tail draped over the edge of the plate, in the center of the table. These were surrounded by platters of buuz and a variety of salads. Apparently, they don't eat the entire sheep's tail during Tsagaan Sar. It's mainly present for tradition, but they can freeze it and melt it down in small parts later to cook with. One sheep's tail can last a family until June.

      DON'Ts During Tsagaan Sar…

• Don't wear a black-colored deel
• Don't drink too much alcohol
• Don't spend the night in another ger (not at home)
• Don't leave animals out to pasture overnight (animals should be close to ger)
• Don't greet your husband or wife
• Don't get a haircut
• Don't embroil or fix old clothes
• Don't get anything from another ger
• Don't kiss during greetings (old people may kiss their children and grandchildren)

       From e-Mongol.com: the best of Mongolia

For more background information and to see a photo, check out this recent UB Post article, "History and Customs of Tsagaan Sar National Holiday".

Allison and I may go fly kites in Sukhbaatar Square during these three days of Tsagaan Sar. I'm writing a poem with the kite as a central metaphor for self so when she suggested it I thought it was a great idea. Then I read this great sketch by Brad Zellar that included a kite in The Rake's January fiction issue that another Fulbrighter from Minnesota brought for me.

Ah, life's patterns...

The moon is waxing. Tonight it was eery since the streetlights were cut off in part of the city and the moon dangled in the sky like someone stuck it up with a tack next to one brilliant star. It was barely a sliver but my brain fooled me into thinking I could see its full roundness. Years ago when I went out to a field with some friends to use a telescope I learned that this was an optical illusion known as "the old Moon in the new Moon's arms." We can't really see any other part of the moon than what is lit up.

Soon I'll be starting translations of L. Ulziitogs poems to try to take advantage of these auspicious times. She just came out with a new book that features her in front of the ocean on the cover. The waves uncurl behind her. I'm looking forward to diving into a new poets work. And soon completed translations of eight of Ayurzana's poems will be submitted to some literary magazines in the US.

Tomorrow I will visit Ayurzana and Ulziitogs's home for Tsagaan Sar. The holiday goes on for three days of visiting family, eating and drinking, etc. I look forward to it very much. They are great people and wonderfully talented. Thus I will leave you with an excerpt of my translation of Ayurzana's poem "Vagrant Train", followed by the Mongolian version and English transliteration:

  Having closed my eyes to hear the first sign of daybreak,
  Somewhere’s sound of a vagrant train knocking its path
  Is disruptive, dying away to an unknown somewhere
  Like a naive love of five, six, seven years ago.

  Тэмдэгрэх үүрийн гэгээг сонсох гэж нүдээ анихад
  Тэнэмэл галт тэрэгний замаа тогших хаа нэгтээх дуу
  Тав, зургаа, долоон жилийн өмнөх гэнэхэн дурлал шиг
  Тасалданги, замхранги, мэдэхгүй нэгэн тийш.

  Temdegrekh üüriing gegeeg sonsokh gej nüdee anikhad
  Tenemel galt teregnii zamaa togshikh khaa negteekh duu   
  Tav, zurgaa, doloong jiliing ömnökh genekheng durlal shig
  Tasaldangi, zamkhrangi, medekhgüi negeng tiish.

Comments

[Amy J Norsten]

Happy Tsagaan Sar! Great description of the moon. I wish there was more of your poetry in your blog!

[Amy J Norsten]

Happy Tsagaan Sar! Great description of the moon. I wish there was more of your poetry in your blog!

[melissa]

i share this with you. and i'm just SURE i saw the whole moon in the baby moon the other day. it was fantastic, all foggy and sliverish!

The Sunday Poem: Robert Wrigley

Kissing a Horse

Of the two spoiled, barn-sour geldings
we owned that year, it was Red—
skittish and prone to explode
even at fourteen years—who'd let me
hold to my face his own: the massive labyrinthine
caverns of the nostrils, the broad plain
up the head to the eyes. He'd let me stroke
his coarse chin whiskers and take
his soft meaty underlip
in my hands, press my man's carnivorous
kiss to his grass-nipping upper half of one, just
so that I could smell
the long way his breath had come from the rain
and the sun, the lungs and the heart,
from a world that meant no harm.

Reprinted from "Earthly Meditations: New and Selected Poems," published in 2006 by Penguin. Copyright © Robert Wrigley, 2006, and reprinted by permission of the author. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.

[George]

I like how you mention that getting drunk over Tsagaan Sar is not kosher. Most Westerners don't pick up on that subtlety about Tsagaan Sar because Mongolians don't really tell us about it. Many Mongolians don't really eat that many buuz or drink that much vodka at the houses they visit. Westerners' experiences in Mongolia tend to be different because Mongolians like to play the "hey! the foreigner's here game." In this "game," Mongolians like to see how much vodka and how many buuz they can get the foreigners to eat and drink. Mongolians can put on a lot of pressure, so many foreigners end up drinking 6 shots of vodka--which is not really kosher at all. The conversation among Mongolians after the foreigners leave might go something like, "Wow, those foreigners sure are big drinkers!"

Nevertheless, there are definitely those Mongolians that like to break their own rules...